


A Study in Orange

by Cherepashka



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Gift Fic, Humor, Pumpkin carving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-19 12:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13123320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherepashka/pseuds/Cherepashka
Summary: Pumpkin carving, Alex figures, will be a good opportunity to figure out exactly what’s going on between Kara and Lena. And also to make clear, should the need arise, that if Lena hurts her little sister at all, Alex will end her. Personally and violently. Preferably with large laser weaponry.





	A Study in Orange

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PoppyCartinelli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyCartinelli/gifts).



> Based on the prompt: "You've never carved a pumpkin?? Lena!!! That's sacrilege!!!!" 
> 
> Happy holidays, PoppyCartinelli! You are a lovely person and I hope you enjoy!

When Lena Luthor shows up at the Danvers Sisters’ Annual Pre-Halloween Pumpkin Carving Extravaganza, Alex is only surprised for four seconds. That’s how long it takes her to say, “Lena! Hey, um, come on in,” and also to dredge up a vague recollection of Kara’s voice over the phone from the day before. 

_… that she never carved a pumpkin. Never, Alex! That’s sacrilege! So I told her she was going to come learn how at ours,_ is what Alex thinks Kara said. She’s not a hundred percent sure because Kara called right as Maggie was getting into bed with Alex, and around the time Kara brought up Lena, Maggie was busy drifting a hand up the inside of Alex’s thigh. So Alex isn’t going to be too hard on herself for being a little bit distracted. 

Anyway, she’s glad Lena’s here. She hasn’t interacted much with Lena socially, since most of the occasions they’ve had to spend time together have involved one or the other of them getting kidnapped by aliens, or someone close to them getting kidnapped by aliens, or people shooting at them as a prelude to kidnapping them, or mother-daughter drama. (Alex is rather proud of the fact that for once, most of the mother-daughter drama is not on her end.) Kara, however, _has_ interacted with Lena socially. It hasn’t escaped Alex’s notice that those interactions have gotten more frequent as of late. Or that Kara’s eyes soften whenever she talks about Lena. Kara hasn’t said anything — yet — but Alex isn’t a crack agent for nothing. Pumpkin carving, she figures, will be a good opportunity to figure out exactly what’s going on between the two of them. And also to make clear, should the need arise, that if Lena hurts her little sister at all, Alex will end her. Personally and violently. 

Not that Kara can’t take care of herself, but what’s the point of being a big sister if not to put the fear of god and large laser weaponry into your sibling’s girlfriend? 

Well — maybe girlfriend. Hopefully girlfriend? Then she and Kara would both have girlfriends! (It still gives Alex a pleasant shiver to realize that she has a girlfriend, especially one as great as Maggie.)

“Um, can I…” Lena begins. 

Alex blinks. “Oh. Of course.” She’s been standing in the doorway, blocking Lena’s way after inviting her in, for quite a while now. She pulls the door open wider and steps aside. 

Lena is, as usual, impeccably dressed, even in what passes for her as casual wear. She’s sporting tight black jeans and an off-white sweater made of something that drapes in the way that only obscenely expensive fabric can drape, with sparkly threads woven into it. Her hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail and her lipstick is a vivid crimson. Alex is suddenly acutely aware that she herself is wearing a frayed apron emblazoned with the words _Have fun storming the castle!_ and a liberal quantity of pumpkin guts. 

“Oh no,” says Lena. “I should’ve worn something different, I —”

“There you are!” Kara comes out from the kitchen, a pumpkin under each arm. Her apron says _Baking is science for hungry people._ She’s already cut a hole in the top of each pumpkin and scooped out the seeds, and she sets them down on the dining table along with the two pumpkins already sitting there. Alex notices that the smile Kara directs at Lena is slightly lopsided. The smile Lena gives her in return is slow and secretive. Intimate, almost. Kara ducks her head and adjusts her glasses. “Come on, let’s find you an apron.” 

She grabs Lena’s hand and pulls her past Alex. 

Well. 

Maggie emerges from the kitchen just as Kara and Lena disappear into it, sporting an apron that says _Be nice to me or I’ll poison the food_ and carrying a soda in each hand. She’s already popped the top of one and tosses the other to Alex, who makes a face. Maggie shrugs. “Kara said no alcohol while we’re playing with knives. You can have a beer when you’re done carving.”

Actually, Alex was planning on having something substantially stronger than a beer, but she settles for making another face and saying, “It is not fair when my girlfriend and my sister gang up on me.”

“Mm. But we’re such an effective team, it’s why you love us both so much.” Maggie tosses her hair back and slips an arm around Alex’s waist, smiling up at her. Alex kisses her. Given the choice, she supposes she’d rather have this than a beer anyway. 

She is just beginning to wonder what precisely is taking Lena and Kara so long finding appropriate pumpkin-carving attire when they return, Kara with her hair slightly mussed and Lena hastily tying an apron that bears the words _Grills who love grills_ and a rainbow flag over a pair of barbecue grills. That apron was actually a gift from Maggie to Alex, which Alex isn’t wearing right now because she couldn’t find it earlier … which means Kara probably borrowed it. For Lena?

Well, well. 

“We can get started,” Kara says, moving to the table. “Mon-El isn’t coming until later and James and Winn said they’re working on a project tonight.” 

Suspicious, Alex thinks, but then there’s only so much mischief those two can get up to on their own. For now, four pumpkins is about all the dining table can fit at one time, and it’s nice to just have her sister and her girlfriend around. And her sister’s maybe-girlfriend?

“Wow. You were really not kidding.” Lena is eyeing the dining table, where four pumpkins have been set out over a layer of newspaper — the _Planet_ , Alex notices, which they only use for occasions like this — along with a frankly frightening array of sharp implements. There are knives, of course, both smooth and serrated, but also miniature saws, a melon baller, chisels, carpentry gouges, needles and pins in various sizes, and — “Is that … a power drill?”

Kara’s smile is dazzling. “I told you. In the Danvers household, pumpkins are serious business.” She laughs fondly. “I can’t believe you said you thought Halloween was ‘mostly about the costumes.’” 

“Well,” says Lena, “it’s not like the Luthors were big on … Halloween cheer.” She says it lightly, with a wry edge, but Alex doesn’t miss the sympathy that immediately flares in Kara’s eyes. Kara nudges Lena’s shoulder gently with her own and doesn’t quite step away afterward, her shoulder still almost touching Lena’s.

“Good thing you’ve got us, then,” Kara says, and Lena turns toward her with a smile, leaning in a little, green eyes wide. Kara goes red, her hand straying up to fidget with her glasses again. 

Well, well, _well_. 

Alex looks away because looking is starting to feel like an intrusion, only to catch Maggie’s sidelong glance and raised eyebrow. _So, those two?_

Alex tilts her chin slightly and gives Maggie a tiny one-shouldered shrug. _You’ve seen as much as I have._ She smirks and gets to work sketching in the National City skyline on her pumpkin. If she shades it right, the buildings will look three-dimensional. Once she finishes her sketch, she goes over it with a needle to make a sort of connect-the-dots outline on her pumpkin. She’s only half paying attention to the conversation, which has progressed from the President’s latest alien non-discrimination executive order (a step in the right direction, but really she should have predicted the backlash), through the relative merits of Risk versus Settlers of Catan (Alex has a vague preference for Catan, but is equally ruthless at both), to, of course, work. She tunes in just in time to catch Maggie saying, “…so then Alex says she’s going for the pumpkin spice latte, which —”

“Hey!” Alex yelps, rudely awakened from her pleasant world of chisels and stringy pumpkin rind. “We agreed never to discuss the Latte Incident!” It hadn’t been Alex’s fault. She’d only wanted to try a pumpkin spice latte for the first time. There was _no way_ she could have known about the secret cabal of tentacled interstellar coffee smugglers.

Maggie smirks, a wicked glint in her eyes. “ _You_ agreed never to discuss the Latte Incident. _I_ said, oh, hm, that seems like a good idea. _For you._ ” Alex elbows her. “Hey, watch where you’re waving those saws!” 

“You’d deserve it if you got stuck with a pumpkin saw,” Alex tells her sternly. She likes this, that she can be like this with Maggie, that Maggie reminds her not to take herself so seriously and can give as good as she gets.

Lena and Kara are looking at the two of them, amused. “What happened with the latte?” Lena asks.

“Nope,” Alex says. “We will never discuss the Latte Incident. Anyway,” she adds, a bit sheepishly, “most of the damage to NCPD’s headquarters has been repaired.”

Lena laughs. “Now I’m really curious.”

“Let’s leave it at ‘Alex has learned her lesson and will never make the mistake of getting a pumpkin spice latte again,’” Maggie says lightly, planting a kiss at the corner of Alex’s mouth. Alex turns and makes it a proper kiss. When she looks back across the table, Lena is biting her lip and Kara is fidgeting with her glasses again. Lena is looking furtively at Kara. Kara is studiously looking anywhere else. 

“So, what did everyone pick for their pumpkin?” she says, voice just a bit too bright to be convincing. Alex hides a smile. 

“Mine’s almost done,” Maggie says proudly. Alex looks at it.

“You chose the Bat Signal? Really?”

“So I can beam it into the sky when we light them up,” Maggie tells her with a grin. 

Alex rolls her eyes. “Gotham is three thousand miles away, and National City has a superhero. Who is not the Batman.”

“Well, I didn’t want to spend hours on something as intricate as yours,” Maggie scoffs. “It’s just a pumpkin.”

Alex and Kara turn on her with identical glares. “Pumpkins are serious business.” 

“Don’t mock the Danvers Sisters’ Annual Pre-Halloween Pumpkin Carving Extravaganza,” Alex adds, flicking a piece of pumpkin goop at Maggie. “You have pumpkin in your hair.” Maggie sticks out her tongue and flicks a piece of her own pumpkin back at Alex.

“No pumpkin fights!” Kara admonishes. She looks at Alex’s half-finished skyline. “Alex, that’s beautiful.” 

Alex smiles down at her pumpkin. “Let's see what you're making.” 

Kara’s is still barely a quarter of the way finished, but even at this stage it’s clear what it’s going to be. The design she’s sketched covers the entire surface of her pumpkin with careful, intricate outlines that require patience and skill to carve. Large sections are carved only partway through, shaded so that a candle placed inside the pumpkin will just barely shine through, lighting the oceans with a dim glow. Kara has rendered coastlines and fjords in precise detail. Continents are left intact, but the pinholes that mark major cities will become points of brightness when the pumpkin is lit. National City is marked with a star. 

Kara is carving the Earth. 

Alex knew what Kara was going to make — she'd done it every year since she took on the identity of Supergirl — but seeing it still makes her chest go tight. It’s a good reminder that what they fight for every day is worth saving. 

“That’s incredible,” Lena breathes. She’s looking not at the pumpkin but at Kara. Kara flushes under the intensity of her gaze. 

“What about yours, Lena?” Maggie breaks in. 

“I’m afraid I’m not up to anything that complicated.” Alex knows for a fact that Lena has invented technology that can sever a single base pair from a strand of DNA, so she’s pretty sure that Lena’s comment is mostly false modesty — but then Lena holds up a miniature saw. The blade has been bent into a misshapen S-curve. She laughs ruefully. “Pumpkin carving is harder than it looks.” 

“Here, let me show you,” Kara says, picking up another small serrated knife. “It’s easier if you hold it like a pencil.” 

And, really, if Alex had any remaining doubts, they wouldn’t survive this. Kara is standing behind Lena, practically pressed up against her as if they’re spooning standing up, one hand on Lena’s shoulder and the other wrapped around Lena’s hand as she grips the knife handle. Lena is leaning back into Kara, lips slightly parted as Kara guides the knife in a delicate back-and-forth motion. 

Girlfriends, then. Good. Alex will need to find a moment later this evening to put the fear of god and large laser weaponry into Lena Luthor, and gently and obliquely let Kara know that she is absolutely supportive of Kara’s relationship choices, and also at some point steal back her _Grills who love grills_ apron although maybe she can get Kara a matching one, and —

“Oh, get a room, already!” 

Kara and Lena spring apart. Maggie throws up her hands, sending fragments of pumpkin goop flying. Alex sighs; those will be a pain to clean up later. 

Kara is blushing furiously. “We weren’t — um. That was just — we’re not —” She reaches up to adjust her glasses and stops when she realizes her hand is covered in pumpkin. 

“Maggie!” Alex hisses. 

Maggie rolls her eyes. “Come on,” she says, grinning crookedly. “Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking it.” She tilts her soda can at Alex. “Cheers.”

Alex snatches the soda can and catches an immediate whiff of alcohol. She takes a sip and coughs. The “soda” is almost entirely whiskey. “You said no alcohol while we’re playing with knives!” she says accusingly. 

“No, _Kara_ said no alcohol while we’re playing with knives,” Maggie corrects, speaking with the precision of one who has consumed quite a lot of whiskey but is nevertheless determined not to slur her words. “ _I_ said, oh, hm, that seems like a good idea. _For you._ ” 

Alex fixes her with a glare and drains the rest of the whiskey before looking back at Kara and Lena. They’re looking at each other intently. “We should just tell them,” Lena says, softly, raising one perfect eyebrow just a hair. 

She holds out a hand toward Kara. It’s covered in pumpkin innards but Kara takes it anyway, biting her lip. “Are you sure?” 

“It’s okay,” Alex interjects. Kara turns to look at her. Alex tilts her chin toward Maggie and says dryly, “We pretty much figured it out already.” 

“I wanted to tell you,” Kara says in a rush. “I just, I mean, you only came out a few months ago, and I didn’t want you to think I was —”

“Hey,” Alex interrupts. “Kara. I think it’s great. But,” she turns to Lena, “just so you know, if you hurt my little sister I will end you.”

“Alex!” Kara says, torn between indignation and laughter.

“Personally and violently,” Alex continues. She ignores Maggie’s snort. “With very large laser weapons.”

“Alex!”

Lena looks straight at Alex. “Believe me, hurting Kara is the last thing I would ever do.” 

Alex holds her gaze for a long moment, then nods. “In that case, as my very excellent girlfriend just said, _get a room_.”

Lena just smiles and pulls Kara in for a kiss.


End file.
